New James Williamson Interview

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/around-town/events/Stooges_Guitarist_to_Play_San_Jose_Show-52392317.html

Great interview with James and Careless Hearts, with photos.

sound really cool !!

WOW OK.. thanks for posting studioguy.
So it's really gonna happen.

- RW: "What kind of set should we expect to hear at next year's Stooges shows?"
JW: "We haven't determined a final set list but everything is up for grabs. One of the things about The Stooges in the old days that was very stupid was that we very rarely played the same stuff very often. We would be playing new stuff as we went along because we thought we were being creative and also because we got bored very easily. So as entertainment we kind of failed because no one really knew the songs. This time around we are trying to draw on things the audience knows and that covers a lot of territory. A lot of "Raw Power" stuff and we'll hit on the first two Stooges albums, maybe a couple of Iggy's solo things.

At the time of this interview Williamson was preparing for rehearsal in L.A. with The Stooges for next year's tour. A photo book documenting the band's early years called "Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story" is in the works. -

The Stooges will work on 26-27 songs, with Mackay on board as well. Dont' miss the slideswow wit the article, a small "Look" link about halfway down the article.

James's own website will be up and running soon as well

cb
http://iggypop.org

Ho-lee shit. There WILL be more Stooges.

great interview, hope this all works out, he looks good too, cant wait for more news on this

ZinZin wrote:

A lot of "Raw Power" stuff and we'll hit on the first two Stooges albums, maybe a couple of Iggy's solo things.

this is great news. mixing up the setlist with a lot of variety.

Quote :

At the time of this interview Williamson was preparing for rehearsal in L.A. with The Stooges for next year's tour.

WOW. i was hoping for a late fall tour THIS year. kind of disappointing we're gonna have to wait until 2010.

BUT, i guess if they're gonna do it right, it makes sense to really take their time.

still, i was hoping to see them by the end of '09... oh well....

The Stooges will work on 26-27 songs with Steve Mackay on board as well?!

Y O W Z A !

JW82 wrote:

The Stooges will work on 26-27 songs with Steve Mackay on board as well?!

Y O W Z A !

Hopefully they will do a few Kill City tracks!! This just keeps on getting better.

Thanks for the link studioguy. I agree, it DOES get better with every interview and news article. The excitement keeps building. James looks cool. And that cheetah decal with the black haired lady on his guitar slays me. I like the mention of KILL CITY most of all.

From looking at the pictures he transitioning from high tech vp back to musician nicely. The Les Paul with "tattoo" really looks nice. It's cool to see it in color rather than most of the distant old b/w photos you see of it.

Interesting to see just what they come up with, old and new. It could be quite a mix!
I hope they won't forget all about that new Ron material, and I hope they don't just use it on some documentary, as has been mentioned before.

Best of luck to the new Stooges, I'm sure they won't need it though. Sounds like they've got things pretty well organized already

studioguy wrote:

JW82 wrote:

The Stooges will work on 26-27 songs with Steve Mackay on board as well?!

Y O W Z A !

Hopefully they will do a few Kill City tracks!! This just keeps on getting better.

Exactly. I saw 'I Got Nothing' lyrics on that James' slideshow. That was helluva surprise!

Thats the guitar - the Les Paul -- he used when he played with the Stooges, with the Leopard Lady decal. He plans to have a spot on his site featuring all his guitars.

cb
http://iggypop.org

Anybody else think The Stooges are becoming just a very good Iggy backing band by the sound of this? I don´t think Ron stuff should be played it can´t be done as well by anyone but him. Personally I think it should only be Williamson stuff so everything from the 1971 songs to "Kill City". But that´s just me.

yeh i thought i read that too, that they'd be doing songs from the first two albums, i dont think they should do that either, i dont think james, as good as he is, could play them as Ron did

but maybe they think that people would know those songs after having heard them for the past five years, so maybe they feel they have to play them or as a homage or something, i duno, but if hey can do it well no problem, but i think they should be left for Ron, that would be more of a sign of respect

and, as much as i am looking forward to this, or at least keeping an eye on it, i have to agree, i thought this would be raw power and maybe stuff like ou&b, and it would be the raw power band, but if they're playing the stooges/funhouse/raw power/post raw power and some stuff like lust for life then i have to agree with G, its nothing more than a glorified backing band for iggy to an extent, which sounds awful, but then again they're probably under pressure or unsure of the 'market' or how fans etc will approach it

they seem fairly unsure of it at this stage, and it isnt happening for a year anyway, so i think i'll just keep an eye on it for now (and wait for the 1971 box!)

It´s not as if there is any shortage of Williamson material. I can think of over 40 original songs.

G, F#, E wrote:

Personally I think it should only be Williamson stuff so everything from the 1971 songs to "Kill City". But that´s just me.

Totally agree with you. I just wanna the stuff from Raw Power, Kill City and 1971. We have now enough live stuff from their 2 albums. Now it's time for James to plays their rawest stuff.

G, F#, E wrote:

Anybody else think The Stooges are becoming just a very good Iggy backing band by the sound of this? I don´t think Ron stuff should be played it can´t be done as well by anyone but him. Personally I think it should only be Williamson stuff so everything from the 1971 songs to "Kill City". But that´s just me.

Not just you.Me as well.

I was disappointed to hear that they will play stuff from the first 2 albums, and it's no disrespect for James' ability, but they're Ron's songs.
Somehow it doesn't surprise me though.

Maybe the mentality is if other bands can cover Stooges tracks, then why can't another Stooge guitarist play Stooges tracks...

i would be rapt if james was playing ron era songs just to hear how he does them with that raw power intensity

Some of you guys don't seem to realize that you are in the minority (James shouldn't play Ron stuff). Tours are all about appealing to the MASSES and the masses wanna hear stuff like I Wanna Be Your Dog and Loose and TV Eye. The masses don't really know Stooges history...they just wanna hear Stooges music!

Myself, I really don't give a fuck WHAT James plays...I'm just happy he is back in the fold and getting ready to play!

mg196 wrote:

Some of you guys don't seem to realize that you are in the minority (James shouldn't play Ron stuff). Tours are all about appealing to the MASSES and the masses wanna hear stuff like I Wanna Be Your Dog and Loose and TV Eye. The masses don't really know Stooges history...they just wanna hear Stooges music!

Myself, I really don't give a fuck WHAT James plays...I'm just happy he is back in the fold and getting ready to play!

Yeah I agree. Don't really see why Ron's legacy would be better kept if it's left unplayed or only covered by lesser artists anyway. Can't imagine an Iggy concert without 'Dog' either.

I'm looking forward to as wide a setlist as possible.

Another side to this story is that as far as I know Iggy wrote ALL the lyrics. So then does that mean Iggy can never do the Iggy/Ron songs again? There couldn't be a better tribute to Ron than to have his songs live on in live performance.

I think I can speak to this as I lost my lead singer and songwriting partner to cancer 5 years ago and I would love to be able to play the songs we wrote together again if nothing else as a tribute and to let his words live again. If I kicked off, I sure would hope that my current songwriting partner would still do my songs.

Sorry for any venting

Quote :

I think I can speak to this as I lost my lead singer and songwriting partner to cancer 5 years ago and I would love to be able to play the songs we wrote together again if nothing else as a tribute and to let his words live again. If I kicked off, I sure would hope that my current songwriting partner would still do my songs.

thats a great example, if thats not too morbid a comment, and im sorry for your loss btw studioguy

but it got me thinking, if anything we should be trying to keep the first two albums going and more importantly gettin more people to listen to Ron and realise just how great he was, i certainly wouldnt like all those songs to just (and sorry to put it like this but) die with him

and like i was saying there are pressures or expectations on them we dont know, they have to balance our 'fan' expectations, but also they have to appeal to maybe the festivals goers or whomever who have been hearing dog, tv eye, loose etc for 5 years and only know them, and obviously they cant just throw Ron's music away altogether, so maybe they should play stuff from the first two albums

dont know, like i said though, if it sounds good, go for it, i can think of no better tribute than keeping the music alive

G, F#, E wrote:

Anybody else think The Stooges are becoming just a very good Iggy backing band by the sound of this? I don´t think Ron stuff should be played it can´t be done as well by anyone but him. Personally I think it should only be Williamson stuff so everything from the 1971 songs to "Kill City". But that´s just me.

On one level I really agree with this, I'm just too much of a Ron fan. But, hey, that's just me too, always trying to live in the past. Hell, I've never got over Dave leaving, the best of the Stooges ended with him, for me. Now that's REALLY trying to live in the past.
Having said that, on another level I am curious to hear how Ron stuff would sound when played by James. I expressed that wish on here well over a year ago...but I didn't particularly want the possibility of it coming true in this fashion, i.e., after Ron's demise. Don't think James would ever have come back to the stooges when Ron was still there though.